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Friday, February 17, 2017

A different kind of flash fiction contest

Last week's writing contest winner posited a world taken over by machines. I loved the pure imaginative concept. The same day I posted that choice, I was reading a piece by Jeff Somers that referenced Ray Bradbury's short story There Will Come Soft Rain.

That story, as you read it, seems clearly inspired by a Sara Teasdale poem.

And the idea came to me: why not use a poem as a prompt!

So, here it is. (this is my favorite poem of all time)

Happiness by Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,

or the way it turns up like a prodigal

who comes back to the dust at your feet

having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots

in the night.

It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

Almost all the usual rules apply:

1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.

2. Use these words in the story:

3. You must use the whole word, but that whole word can be part of a larger word. The letters for the prompt must appear in consecutive order. They cannot be backwards. Thus: flim is ok, but MILF is not.

4. Post the entry in the comment column of THIS blog post.

5. One entry per person. If you need a mulligan (a do-over) erase your entry and post again. It helps to work out your entry first, then post.

6. International entries are allowed, but prizes may vary for international addresses.

7. Titles count as part of the word count (you don't need a title)

8. Under no circumstances should you tweet anything about your particular entry to me. Example: "Hope you like my entry about Felix Buttonweezer!" This is grounds for disqualification.

8a. There are no circumstances in which it is ok to ask for feedback from ME on your contest entry. NONE. (You can however discuss your entry with the commenters in the comment trail...just leave me out of it.)

9. It's ok to tweet about the contest generally.
Example: "I just entered the flash fiction contest on Janet's blog and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt"

11. You agree that your contest entry can remain posted on the blog for the life of the blog. In other words, you can't later ask me to delete the entry and any comments about the entry at a later date.

12. The stories must be self-contained. That is: do not include links or footnotes to explain any part of the story. Those extras will not be considered part of the story.

Contest opens: 8:54am, Saturday 2/18/17

Contest closes: 9am, Sunday 2/19/17

If you're wondering how much time you have before the contest closes: click here.

56 comments:

Katina is one year old today.There will be cake and ice cream.No chocolate! And, of course,presents!wrapped in colorful paper and ribbonswhich she will tear offwhile squealing with delight.Noisy toys, which will assault my earsand she’ll love,and maybe a cuddly doll or two .

Katina, my elfin granddaughter,who can say three words I hope to hearfor the first time today.

Katina, a year oldand no longer crawling but walking!towards me with outstretched armsand frosting-smeared lipsdrawn into a smilebecause she is happy to see me.

He frowned as he threw a ladle’s worth of the glop at my tray. It landed with a sound somewhere between a SPLOOOORK and a whimper.

I trudged my ration across the sepia courtyard, finding a spot at a table that had long since surrendered to its fate. Close, but not too close, sat the others. Ashen faces contemplated their own oozy destinies. I couldn’t read their minds. I didn’t have to.

They’ve lied before.

I decided death could be an improvement. A weary hand guided a spoonful of the horrid stuff toward my mouth.

Happiness. Such a fickle quiddity, isn’t it? There’s no key to it, it can’t be bought, it can’t even be found. Not that I ever tried looking again – not after that first time. Fuck happiness. It left me days ago and I haven’t seen that bitch since. I look at the empty chair across from mine. Red velvet. Who in their right mind would ever buy a red velvet chair for a place like this? But she was never in her right mind. Then again, neither am I. I wipe the blade on my pants. It seems happy. Me too.

I have never been so afraid.Growling like no dog on earth.Whining, whistling, like a thousand voices.Poles, tables, chairs, and cars.Then deafening silence.Nothing.Except the whimpering of the hopelessThe lostWho have lost everything.I step around broken beamsJump across chairsTo the sobs of a girl on a boxSurrounded by her shattered lifeClutching a doll.I find her lap.She finds my chin.She sighs.I purr.

Almost there. The scent of exhaust and fresh-mown grass. Every Saturday, ever faithful. She was faithful too, until the day freedom called louder than the comforts of home. The day she ran.

She’d run far and fast. No boundaries for her. But freedom came with costs. She’d done things. Things to appease her hunger, things he could never forgive. She no longer deserved a home. Yet here she was, repentant, hoping for scraps.

He looked up, stopped the mower. “Misty? Is that you?” He ran to embraced her. “I was so worried. Come inside.”

Jake wrapped his arms around knees that bent like overloaded pizza slices, ignoring the sting as his sleeves scraped scabs the size of pepperoni and roused the blood beneath their crusted tops. It wasn’t fair, he told himself. He’d been ‘sponsible. He hadn’t written a letter or anything. But it didn’t matter. He could hear the wing beats like ominous drums in his ears, could hear them carry IT through the door. He was too late. His mom was bringing IT to him. “Jake,” she said. “Meet your baby brother.”Jake stared at the lump. And then, he smiled

I read the poem.I read it again.I nodded quietly to myself.I turned off the computer.I took my kids to the butterfly conservatory.We had lunch with my sister and my niece.I didn’t check my email. I didn’t read the news.That hard fist in my chest eased a little.Now I am going for a walk in the woods with my family.And that is why I’m not entering the contest this week.

It found her in the oddest of moments today. The sudden surprise would make her laugh.The way her puppy danced on hind legs at the sight of dropped bacon – that he knocked over. Happiness.The little boy giggling when she slipped on the the banana peel – that he threw. Happiness.The smile as her grandma pinched that cute doctor's butt at the nursing home – and he just squealed. Happiness.The shocked pantsless guy in the changing room – that she just barged in on. Ha! Penis.

I sit in the dark, crying and waiting for answers. The ground is hard and cold. Despair wraps its cloak around me. In the distance, a pale glimmer of light peeks out from the blackness. Hope.Afraid of knowing, I bow my head and squeeze my eyes shut. The answer could be 'no'. Fear.Sudden heat warms my cold soul. I peek upwards.A blinding light consumes me.Relief.I have an answer. Could it be yes?Happiness!

"But Momma, I don't want to run anymore. You said we would find happiness in this country.""Even adults can be wrong sometimes.Button your coat.""Is it really cold in Canada?""Not as cold as it is here."

He pulled his coat tight before stepping into swirling winds of the concrete canyon. All colors seemed grey since he came home to changed locks and the acrimonious afterward.

Turning to lock the door, he was weakly headbutted in the shin. A ghost of a smile cracked a face that had been solemn too long. The cat, his cat, had chosen and come to find him. He lifted the cat to warm it under his coat.

The smile grew when the cat got his motor running and a big purr emanated from it. Happiness is found in small, unconditional things.

It smells like hot garbage.Probably because I am in the garbage.And the day is hot.It wasn’t always like this. I began life on a shelf, pristine beneath my plastic packaging. My bright future as yet unspooled.But I was bought hastily, for a child with too much already. I was one of many.If I had a heart, it would ache. The garbage can tips. The indignity of something sticky smearing across my face as we tumble: strawberry jam. A dog’s hot breath, its slobbery tongue. But also, sunshine. And also, a child’s voice.“Mama, look! A doll!”

It came with the rising sun casting colors and light across the clouds sweeping and swirling in spikes across the sky. It came with the fresh smell of the air when she stepped outside to watch the sun sparkle on the dew of the trees and grass. It came overwhelmingly when she heard the baby’s happy gurgle of the morning. How had it happened? This day, this world? It had breathed in below the sadness, snuck into the crevices of memory, slithered over shadows, pushing always outwards until it filled her body, her life, her world. Happiness.

Two saplings gaze into a pool. “See my brawny branches,” says Oak, stretching. “And my ample trunk,” Sycamore preens, digging roots into the Earth. “Your bark’s like a fungus.”“Your progeny’s the teats of a fox, who milked too long.”Why fight? hisses Wind, joyriding between their leaves. What do you accomplish?Ignoring Wind, Oak roars to his squirrel brigade, “Hurl my progeny at that blasphemous ogre!” Songbirds of Sycamore dive-bomb the squirrels, screaming back insults. War rages in the canopy.

The park bench is hard on Harriet's old bones. Nearby, a little girl begs her mother unsuccessfully for ice cream.

Harriet, her heart long unraveled by regret, recalls her son's voice, how it grated her nerves. She was a lousy mother. She pushed him away over and over until he stayed away on his own. If she could have another chance, she'd grab it, never let go.

The girl wanders over. Harriet glances at the mother, focused on her cell. Harriet stands, holds out her hand. The girl takes it, weaving her fingers through Harriet's.

Blood. By noon the baby was gone. How could they recover from such loss, how could they ever experience joy once more, how could their world prop straight again?And then, mere months later, a blue strip proclaimed their escape from grief. From heartbreak a family formed, thrived and painted joy in every corner of their lives. Lesson learned:Desperately needed and least expected, happiness often wriggles into our lives to tickle away despair.

The doctors brought you backbut the promise was not ours to receive. It is yours alone.

How do we love you?Let us countyour strong strides that led us, your calloused garden hands,your quiet watchfulness among the tall pine trees as you munched unripe apples, summer ruffling your barely-gray hair.

We will rememberas you valiantly pushthrough hospital hallways that hospice wheelchair, refusing to sit, until you find spring’s unseasonably early sunlit promiseon your weathered-vine faceand the bright breeze that beckons you home.

They tell her that happiness is a baby.She’s not interested. She’s the perfect breeder, they say,With love handles, and baby fat. They ply her with men,Some with muscles, some not. She prefers intellect. And careful hands.Much different than the one they thrust on her. Baby fat makes for baby. It grows, unnatural, within her. She’s sick, drugged. The thing inside her transforms…Points instead of curves. Metal, instead of bone…Just like her.She rips the mechanical fetus From her green drenched insidesAnd cries out

My first thought was a snake waving to me. That didn't make sense and the snake had legs. My second was a striped dragon had appeared. That too seemed unlikely. I focused.

Blue and yellow snout. Four legs. Frustrated growls.

Suspicion bloomed.

The growling turned to bays and my dumb dog, stuck in my sock, danced. I laughed. The sound scratched and spluttered and coughed, but didn't stop. I couldn't. I could still feel the numbness, but I could also feel something else: happiness.

He held her, and the fear crept in like a rising tide advancing on an oblivious child. By the time he noticed, it had damn near swallowed him whole. His heart drummed through his chest and against her curved back. “What the hell is wrong with me?” he thought. There was nothing worse than a sniffling coward who was too afraid to simply open the door and let happiness waltz in once chance had done the all heavy lifting. He took one breath, and one breath only, and decided that was not who he was going to be.

She was a long-legged redhead, with a cute little nose. Her heavenly body moved with a slow French southwestern kinda gait. We met at a wine tasting event. She was tastefully dressed, love at first sight.

One night I had her over for dinner. She opened up, but she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Maybe she was tired of living in some Godforsaken fishbowl.

She was fine with the main course, but for dessert, she declined. Sadly, it didn’t last, she spirited away.

In the morning, I found her sleeping like a dead soldier, awash in an afterglow of happiness.

The boy clung to the broken fence surrounding the playground. Crumbled cinder blocks piled up next to rusty swings. He stared into the sky.

“Isaiah?”

“Hey, Annie.”

“Whatcha doing?”

“Wishing I could catch one of those clouds. Hold it in my arms, ride outta here, never look back. Nothing would make me happier.”

“Then you’ll never be happy.”

***

Twenty years later, Isaiah stood at the fence again. He wiped the sweat from his brow and put the last of the trash into a bag. Kids squealed on the new playground. He grabbed Annie’s hand, returned her smile.

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The 411

I'm a literary agent in NYC. I specialize in crime fiction and narrative non-fiction (history and biography.) I'll be glad to receive a query letter from you; guidelines to help you decide if I'm looking for what you write are below.
There are several posts labelled "query pitfalls" and "annoy me" that may help you avoid some common mistakes when querying.